Published 10:00 am, Thursday, June 19, 2014

Those four words speak volumes if you happen to be a polygraph examiner; especially an award-winning examiner.

Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office Lt. James Fontenot recently received the Tim Kennedy Examiner of the Year Award presented by the Texas Association of Law Enforcement Polygraph Investigators for 2014, the top honor for polygraph examiners in the state.

Fontenot spent 21 years in the U.S. Army, retiring at the rank of Chief Warrant Officer. He also was in the Naval Reserve for a year, making his Armed Forces career 22 years. That career took him all over the world, including Europe, the Middle East, South America, Central America, the Caribbean, Asia, Alaska and the U.S. mainland.

He joined the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office in May of 1992. He initially worked in the Detention Division as a civilian, but he took night classes at Wharton County Junior College simultaneously to become a Texas Peace Officer. He then moved to the Patrol Division and then to the Criminal Investigation Division where he worked approximately seven years each. Fontenot also was a member of the SWAT team throughout his patrol years and part of his CID tenure.

After becoming a Sergeant in 2006, he was assigned to the Internal Affairs Division.

“The Internal Affairs Division didn’t really exist at the time, so I was the only person in IAD,” said Fontenot.

His first move was to take the polygraph course at the Texas DPS Polygraph School in Austin. That was in June 2007. The three-month program was followed by a 12-month internship, which he served under a private polygraph examiner.

“I would take my findings for his review,” Fontenot said, adding he also had to read and expand his knowledge of polygraph testing. He ultimately had to take the state licensing exam.

Fontenot began the pre-employment screening testing at the Sheriff’s Office soon after graduating polygraph school.

Two years later, Sgt. Kelly Walger also began conducting polygraph testing in the Internal Affairs Division. Fontenot said the most polygraph tests he and Walger have given in a year is about 450.

“It takes a minimum of two hours to conduct a test, depending on the individual,” Fontenot said. “My longest exam was four hours. The examinee was a bank robbery suspect.”

Fontenot also does examinations for other agencies, including the District Attorney’s Office, the FBI and the Treasury Department.

“We are required to tell the person whether they passed or failed,” he said. “Our goal is to find out why someone failed. That’s where we try to get admissions or confessions. Fontenot believes the polygraph program at the Sheriff’s Office is one of the better programs around.

“We started doing things before they were required,” he said, such as employing audio-visual taping during exams. That began here in 2007, “well before it was required in January 2014.”

The award was presented to Fontenot at the association’s conference in San Marcos, June 1-6. There are 263 licensed examiners in Texas.

IAD Captain Paul Mosley wrote a commendation letter to the association, citing two Capital Murder Investigation cases where Fontenot’s testing extracted two full confessions in those cases which involved the deaths of toddlers.

Fontenot and his wife, JoAnn, have been married 42 years. They have one son, one grandson “and a grand-niece we have adopted as our granddaughter.”

Answering probably the most asked question of a polygraph examiner, Fontenot said with a smile, “I have never had anyone who I felt could beat the polygraph.”